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Wealth Inequality, Aggregate Consumption, and Macroeconomic Trends under Incomplete Markets

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  • Byoungchan Lee

Abstract

I construct an incomplete market model featuring a closed-form expression for optimal consumption. In the model, individual consumption is an isoelastic function of wealth, inclusive of income, yielding partial consumption smoothing based on borrowing and lending in response to income shocks. I show that the model replicates several empirical characteristics of inequality in consumption, income, and wealth and their dynamics at the individual level. Using the model, I show that the rising wealth inequality since the 1980s, induced by an increase in idiosyncratic income risk, has substantially contributed to trend-level changes in real interest rates, capital-to-income ratios, and consumption-to-wealth ratios.

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  • Byoungchan Lee, 2025. "Wealth Inequality, Aggregate Consumption, and Macroeconomic Trends under Incomplete Markets," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 414-442, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:aejmac:v:17:y:2025:i:1:p:414-42
    DOI: 10.1257/mac.20210490
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • D31 - Microeconomics - - Distribution - - - Personal Income and Wealth Distribution
    • D52 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Incomplete Markets
    • E21 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Consumption; Saving; Wealth
    • E43 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects
    • G51 - Financial Economics - - Household Finance - - - Household Savings, Borrowing, Debt, and Wealth

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